Paris Launching Electric Car Sharing Program Next Year

Citywide bike sharing systems are easy enough to organize, but how about citywide electric vehicle sharing programs? Paris is hoping to capitalize on the success of its bike-sharing system (Velib) with an EV sharing scheme dubbed Autolib — and it might be ready as soon as September of next year!

Here’s how it will work: cars will be stored both in parking garages and on the street as part of a public-private partnership between Autolib and the city of Paris. No word yet on how much the program will cost, but Autolib claims that it will be significantly lower than the approximately $7,000 per year that it costs to own a car in the city.

Theft will, of course, be an issue — just as it is with bike-sharing programs. Even though vehicles are more difficult to steal than bikes, the French have something of a reputation for burning cars in anger. The car-sharing scheme will only work, then, if Parisians decide to respect it. And we won’t know if that will happen until the program begins.